The Colorado Rockies and Matt Belisle have avoided arbitration on Wednesday by agreeing to a new one-year contract, Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman reports:
#rockies avoided arbitration with matt belisle, at $2.35 mil
Jon Heyman
SI_JonHeyman
Belisle had a 2.93 ERA and a 1.087 WHIP in 92.0 innings in 2010. This is a well deserved pay raise for the relief pitcher who made $850,000 last season. Besides putting up career best in ERA and WHIP, Belisle saw a career best in K/9 with 8.9. He was the best pitcher on the Colorado Rockies not named Ubaldo Jimenez, finishing second in ERA behind the third-place NL Cy Young finisher.
Belisle will resume his seventh-inning role as part of the Rockies' bullpen, but manager Jim Tracy should be cautious in not overworking Belisle this season. It is likely that we will see some regression on Belisle's part, but for now he will be one of the go-to pitchers in the bullpen when needed in those crucial late-inning frames.